Assessment and Feedback: Two Critical Components

I am sure we all appreciate the importance of assessment and that it is more than a grade earned on an exam or in a course.  However, how many of us remember that an essential aspect of student success on assessments is related to feedback?  How well do we provide feedback?  Do we provide it frequently enough and in a way that supports and fosters students to use that feedback to improve or overcome learning deficits?  Granted, the nature of PA curriculum and timing does add complexity to having the time we would like to provide students with feedback.  However, with a solid understanding and intentional use of formative and summative assessments integrated into our courses, we can likely achieve this and even shift students from grade-focused to learning-focused.  That shift, however, has to start with us because how we design our courses and curriculum can communicate and reinforce this for students.  As teachers, I would venture to believe that what we want most is for students to learn, not for them to be grade-focused.  While we may sincerely try to communicate this, we often don’t follow through with that message in the design of our courses, how we use formative and summative assessments, and how we provide feedback.

Understanding where the gap is in a student’s learning is pointless if nothing is done with that information (Sadler, 1989).  Providing effective feedback is essential to student learning and assessment.  However, many times, we fall short of providing the kind of detail needed that clearly describes what the student did well or correct and where they did not.  We tend to use vague statements like “good work,” “I would have liked to see more,” and “this is subpar.” Such statements do not provide clear guidance to students about their strengths and weaknesses.  Effective feedback needs to provide specific guidance on how to improve (Orlando, 2017).

Let’s quickly review formative and summative assessments.

Formative assessment evaluates knowledge and skills during the learning process and helps identify areas of learning strengths and weaknesses for us and the students.  They also serve best as a tool for improving learning and not for grade assignment or acquisition (Carnegie Mellon, n.d.; Martin, 2023; Waugh & Gronlund, 2013).

Summative assessments are meant to evaluate the culmination of learning, be it skills, knowledge, application, or comprehension, at the end of a unit, course, or program.  These assessments should help us know and provide evidence that our students have met the learning outcomes for the course and the program (Carnegie Mellon, n.d.; Martin, 2023; Waugh & Gronlund, 2013). 

Feedback Literacy

The goal of feedback is to provide students with specific and detailed information relative to their learning so that they can use that information to improve (Martin, 2023).  However, the challenge that has come to light is that, commonly, students do not have feedback literacy.  First defined in 2012, feedback literacy refers to the importance for students to understand how to work with the feedback they receive and to effectively apply it to their learning (Peterson-Ahmad, Keeley & Roberts, 2022; Sutton, 2012).  This means we must improve at providing effective, usable feedback.  But first, we need to help students know how to work with feedback by developing their feedback literacy.

Students can work more effectively with feedback if they have the understanding, capacities, and disposition needed to apply it to their learning (Carless & Boud, 2018).  The important point here is for students to understand that they need to actively participate in feedback.  Simply reading or listening to the faculty member’s comment is not enough.  Feedback is a process through which learners make sense of the comments from teachers and use them to enhance and improve their work and learning (Carless, 2015, 2018).  How do we do that?  According to Carless & Boud (2018), there are four inter-related features essential for student feedback literacy:

(1) students need to be motivated to appreciate feedback processes and see their value

(2) students need to develop the ability to make sound and accurate judgments about their academic work and effort

(3) emotional resilience is needed to minimize negative or defensive reactions to critical and constructive feedback

(4) students need to see feedback as an active activity that requires them to take action to improve their work and better their learning

Undoubtedly, the above aspects rest primarily with the students themselves.  Every student is different, and their reaction and responses to feedback are equally different.  The better we know our students, the better we adjust how we provide feedback to ensure the student can receive it, learn from it, and not feel attacked, defeated, upset, or frustrated.  However, we can encourage and support such behaviors by first teaching them about the role and purpose of feedback and how to use it.  Secondly, designing our courses in such a way that requires students to use the feedback provided to improve their learning or performance.  Third, by becoming better at providing clear, detailed, and useable feedback.

Fostering Feedback Literacy

Student feedback should foster active engagement and self-reflection by the student.  When the feedback provided is focused and detailed, it helps students monitor their learning, make adjustments throughout the process, and ultimately, better understand their areas of strength and areas of needed improvement (Martin, 2023).  As mentioned, we need to provide this framework to the students about their role and our expectations around feedback to foster this response.  We also need to consider how we can improve our skills at providing effective feedback and how we develop our courses and assessments.

 Well-designed courses will have a good balance of formative and summative assessments.  We can do this in the design of our courses by intentionally including formative assessments to provide opportunities for effective feedback so students can determine where their strengths are and where there are gaps in their learning, skill, or knowledge.  It does little good to have a major assignment due at the end of the course, with no opportunity for feedback to occur during the course.  End-of-course assignments and assessments, by their timing, provide little opportunity for feedback; thus, consider where along the course you can include formative assessment (Carless, 2018).

Suppose a major written assignment, paper, or project in your course is due at or near the end of the semester or quarter.  One example is including a smaller but similar assignment due about mid-semester with the focus on providing detailed feedback so students can adjust before the final (summative) assignment is due.  Another way to do this is to have students submit various components of the paper or project throughout the course so that ongoing feedback is provided, which allows them to correct errors before they submit the final document.  Each of these submission points throughout the course is a formative assessment that focuses on feedback and not necessarily on a grade.  They provide the students with clear information about where they need to adjust to succeed and achieve the learning outcome that is tethered to this assignment.

Yet another way to do this is to provide students with practice or mock experiences throughout the course when the summative assessment includes performance or evaluation of application, comprehension, and skills.  Practicals or OSCEs are examples.  It is important to remember that most of our students have not taken a practical-based or OSCE type of examination during their prior educational experience.  Using formative assessment to provide them with a practice experience that is focused on giving feedback to identify their weak areas so they can strengthen them before the summative examination can be extremely helpful.  In my experience, practicals and OSCEs are high-stress for students, and doing these practice, formative sessions or activities helps to reduce some of the stress and anxiety.  

Much research has proved that feedback is best given as soon as possible.  This allows for immediate integration of corrective information (Haughney, Wakeman & Hart, 2020).  However, in addition to the timeliness of feedback is the quality of that feedback.  Feedback can effectively promote learning if it is personal, manageable, motivational, and directly related to what is being taught and assessed (Hatziapostolou & Paraskakis, 2010).

Including intentional formative assessment to provide students with detailed and usable feedback is important to their achievement and success on summative assessments by helping students understand where their learning gaps are and giving them time to work toward correcting them during the course.

References

Brand, D., Novak, M. D., DeGennaro Reed, F. D. & Tortolero, S. A. (2020). Examining the effects of feedback accuracy and timing on skill acquisition.  Journal of Organizational Behavioral Management, 40(1-2), 3-18.  https://doi.org/10.1080/01608061.2020.1715319

Carless, D. (2015).  Excellence in University Assessment: Learning from Award-Winning Practice.  Routledge

Carless, D. (2018).  Feedback literacy: Activing student learning potential.  The Teaching Professor.  https://www.teachingprofessor.com/?p=58270

Carless, D., & Boud, D. (2018).  The development of student feedback literacy: Enabling uptake of feedback.  Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education.  https://doi:org/10.1080/0262938.2018.1463354

Haughney, K., Wakeman, S., & Hart, L. (2020).  Quality of feedback in higher education: A review of literature.  Education Sciences 10(3), 60-75.     https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10030060

Martin, D. J. (2023).  Are your assessments fair and balanced?  Faculty Focus.  https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/educational-assessment/are-your-assessments-fair-and-balanced/

Orlando, J. (2017).  The failure of feedback.  The Teaching Professor.  https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/online-teaching-and-learning/grading-feedback-online-learning/the-failure-of-feedback/

Orlando, J. (2021).  Avoiding common feedback mistakes.  The Teaching Professor.  https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/online-teaching-and-learning/avoiding-common-feedback-mistakes/

Peterson-Ahmad, M. B., Keeley, R. G., & Roberts, M. (2022).  “They don’t read my feedback!” Strategies to encourage reception and application of course feedback.  Faculty Focus.  https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/educational-assessment/they-dont-read-my-feedback-strategies-to-encourage-reception-and-application-of-course-feedback/

Sadler, D. R. (2010). ‘Beyond feedback: Developing student capacity in complex appraisal.’ Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 35(5), 535-550. 

Sutton, P. (2012).  Conceptualizing feedback literacy: Knowing, being, and acting.  Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49(1), 31-40.  https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2012.647781

Waugh, C. K., and Gronlund, N. E. (2013). Assessment of Student Achievement, 10^thed.  Pearson Education, Inc.

What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?  (n.d.).  Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center.  Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation.  https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html